Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/46

 fessors of them, more abstruse and deeper enquiry into every philosophical subject, and a greater shew of subtilty and close reasoning, than in the most enlightened ages of all antiquity. But their writings were mere speculative amusements, and all their researches exhausted upon trifles. Unskilled in the arts of adorning their knowlege, or adapting it to common sense, their voluminous productions rest peacefully in our libraries, or at best, are enquired after from motives of curiosity, and not of learning, not by the scholar, but the virtuoso.

not insensible, that several late French historians, have exhibited the obscure ages in a very different light; they have represented them, as utterly ignorant both of arts and sciences, buried in the profoundest darkness, or only illuminated